Forum on disabilities turns into wide-ranging talk in governor’s race

Gov John Hickenlooper answers questions about how the state serves people with disabilities during a forum put on by Metropolitan State University or Denver Friday. (Joey Bunch/The Denver Post)

Gov. John Hickenlooper and his Republican challenger, Bob Beauprez, discussed the issues facing those with disabilities in Colorado during a forum Friday on Denver’s Auraria campus, but the discussion quickly branched out to public safety, prison mental health, the Jefferson County school curriculum, the state computer system and the minimum wage.

No bomb shells or game changers came about, but the wide-ranging discussion provided lots of perspectives that aren’t in the campaigns’ talking points or the press coverage to date.

Rick Palacio, chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party, put out a statement Saturday drawing from a Durango Herald article that cited one of Beauprez’s remarks.

“Congressman Beauprez is out of touch and irresponsible to advocate for a school board that is politicizing our children’s future,” Palacio said. “To best prepare our children to be our nations next generation of leaders, they should be armed with all of America’s rich and incredible history, not just the limited and ideological agenda of the Tea Party extremes.”

I was there, and I didn’t take the totality of Beauprez’s comments as any kind of endorsement, but rather his saying it’s a local issue that the elected local school board decided, and local voters should decide at the ballot box, if they disagree.

As the Herald reported, Beauprez said, “An elected school board not only has the right to speak up about curriculum and what they think are the wisest choices … but they have an obligation to do that.” The article did not call it an endorsement, however.

Beauprez said more than gave a fuller context, including, “I trust parents,” and if they’re unhappy, “The remedy comes pretty quickly at the next election.”

Hickenlooper said children needed to be exposed to a broad range of educational facets, which, if we’re talking tacit, as the Democrats are, means Hickenlooper is with the students who walked out.

The forum also is highlighted by two candidates’ discussions on crime. Beauprez began his answer in a way that would appeal to those with disabilities.

“Criminals don’t typically go after the strongest they can find; they go after the most vulnerable,” he said.

Beauprez said that while the state shouldn’t seek to lock up more people, “it’s that we lock up the right people,” citing those who commit violent acts.

Hickenlooper said more needs to be done to address the state’s mental health system, an issue that has been neglected for decades and emerges in many issues, including homelessness and crime. In his first term, “I think we made a dent,” he said, noting that the state put $30 million into mental health programs after the Aurora theater shooting in 2012.

He talked about a friend of his — whom he did not name but was his friend Jack Ebel — who saw his “severely bipolar” son “waste away” each month as he languished in solitary confinement in a Canon City prison.

When Evan Ebel was mistakenly released early, he assassinated state prison chief Tom Clements in the doorway of his Monument home in March 2013, before he was killed two days later in a shootout with law enforcement in Texas.

Hickenlooper recalled Clements’ interview for the job, and how prison mental health was one of his top priorities. Hickenlooper called Clements’ death a tragic irony.

“He didn’t make the connection that Tom Clements was trying to help him,” Hickenlooper said.

Aaron Harber, host of cable TV’s (and the Denver Post’s) ubiquitous “The Aaron Harber Show,” moderated the discussion. The candidates were each given an hour, but did not meet on stage..

Harbor described the event this way in an e-mail to reporters before the event: “The all-inclusive definition of disabilities includes over half million Coloradans and their families. They represent a critically important number of Colorado citizens who vote with a high rate of participation (+550,000 people with disabilities and their +1,100,000 family members).”

The forum will be chopped up into five parts, with a new one appearing daily first on the DenverPost.com Politics pagefrom Oct. 6 to Oct. 10. The respective segments will run on TV each day that week from 3 p.m. on KCDO-TV Channel 3 channels on DirecTV statewide, DISH, and from 11:30 p.m. and repeated at 1 p.m. the next day on Comcast.

One or more of the five programs also could run on Channel 3 on Oct. 12 at 11 a.m., and statewide on ION Television on Oct. 14 at 5:30 a.m. Additional broadcasts also could be announced.

“The candidates were each given an hour, but did not meet on stage, beyond Hickenlooper taking a sip from the glass of water that wasn’t changed out after Beauprez spoke and likely sipped from it” — a peculiar detail to include, but serving as an apt metaphor; both candidates are drinking from the same cup of false assumptions.

“Beauprez said more than [sic] gave a fuller context, …” — “Beauprez said more, then gave a fuller context, …”, writers usually incorrectly use “then” in place of “than”, but you did the opposite.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.